Guild Wars 2

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Some other interesting ways we could midigate the pressure on alts is just make all ascended gear account bound it would remove some demand but it’s something we’ve discussed before.

Three problems:
a) my mesmer wears zerk with damage runes, my ele wears soldier’s with boon duration runes and my necromancer likes rabid with condition damage. How are they supposed to share an armor set?
Same with my adventurers (zerk, knight’s and cleric’s) and my heavys (knight’s and cleric’s). With my character setup, not a single set would be shareable.
b) even if the attributes and runes work for multiple characters, skins and dyes probably don’t. What happens when you transmute a cultural armor skin onto it?
c) Having to visit the bank before and after switching characters cannot by any means be called a fun game mechanic.

So while this is probably just a click of a checkbox to implement, it’s not going to help.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Another idea is we could make it easier to craft ascended gear after you’ve made the first set

Yes, please. I’ve mentioned it before, but the bulk of the costs should have been in leveling to 500 and unlocking the recipes, not in crafting the final items. It’s a bit late for that now that everyone is at 500, but some kind of cost reduction for subsequent items (reducing both the timegated mats and dragonite requirements) would be greatly appreciated.

Note again that this must apply to subsequent items regardless of attributes or it won’t help.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

or we could allow you to duplicate ascended gear with some recipe so once you’ve created one set you can copy it for an alt for less.

Again, this would only help if the copy is allowed to have different attributes.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

You could allow people to give up other time gates for the crafting one by letting people craft stuff with laurals or mystic coins.

This is not going to help players with alts, since anyone with lots of alts is not going to have a single laurel left. Amulets and ascended recipes for 8 characters already require way more laurels than anyone could have earned in the game until now.

Having to pay laurels not just for every item, but for every item/attribute combination is a major pain for everyone who likes multiple builds, and I think that that’s one of the first things you should revert. It’s just not reasonable that some players should pay as few as 40 laurels and others somewhere around 400 (depending on the amount of 1-handed weapons you wield). I think that a factor of 10 is unreasonable in general, but it’s especially outrageous when said currency is behind a hard time gate.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

adubb.2453:

Here’s an crazy idea that’s a little out of left field:

What if any profession could use any armor type?
With this one change you would instantly have access to a wider range of aesthetic choice for their character. Not only would your characters get a wider aesthetic choice, but you could have some really crazy builds with it but it would completely squash the idea of the “trinity”.

In order to assist with balance, you could perhaps give certain advantages/disadvantages with each type of armor. Heavy armor would give you increased armor rating, but decreased movement speed. Medium armor would give a healthy dose of both. Light armor would give you the most movement speed, but lowest armor rating. The ability to mix and match would significantly widen the range of builds and survivability.

Bizarre use cases!
Guardians could switch to medium armor to focus more on DPS, then survivability. Ele’s could wear heavy armor to boost their survivability and perhaps encourage more melee Ele’s in PvE. When was the last time you saw a D/D ele in a dungeon? (It’s rare!) And imagine what would no doubt be everyone’s nightmare? A necro in heavy armor! Good lord, it would be glorious!

One thing to keep in mind how our system works is you can’t mix heavy, medium and light armor together the way we lay out the texture means these items can never be mixed. After that while it would open up some options you always have to be careful with making profession all feel the same. This is all ready a big struggle as we want all professions to fill multiple roles but it’s important some professions have weakness that they can overcome if you let your weakest character be a toughest as your toughest then they both lose some some of what makes them different

Would a potential solution to this be to restrict the armor to all be from the same type? IE: if you put on a leather coat, all your non-medium armor is removed? (Think like how the preview works when you look at armor outside your type)

I would LOVE to see a wider variety of gearing choices (yeah, this is more horizontal than vertical, but it’s still awesome).

Aye.8392:

Shongaqu.5279:

…Continued form above…

TLDR : I would like to see a horizontal progression system in the game that focuses on investing us in the world of Tyria; a system that allows us to build something beyond our character’s stats and appearance. I would like to see a system that rewards gameplay with expanded options to generate world content for yourself and other players.

This sounds like a great game, but it doesn’t sound at all like GW2.

Do you feel that way because of the single player elements ? Because it departs from the gneral farming philosopy that pervades the PvE game? or some other reason? The design ideas were mostly dervied from guild missions and trying to come up with a better way to do rep grinds than GW1.

I personally believe that the game needs a healthy dose of vertical and horizontal progression. It should not be so polarized towards either of the two.

Why do we have crafting in the game? Because every other MMO out there has it?
Crafting implies grinding similar with levels.
The working philosophy should be taken out of the fantasy worlds. We have the real life for that.
We want to be heroes fighting or taming legendary beasts not being letherworkers making socks and poaches
C’’mon not even grandmas are making those anymore

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

snip

You are totally overexaggerating here in my opinion.
You think its not feasible, because I think you are lacking of the imagination power to think about it, how such a system could work for GW2.

I want not complete new classes. I#ve also never said a single word about it, that a Sub Class System like I want to see it for GW2 should instantly implement 30+ new Skills into the game. Thats just overexaggerating nonsense, or better formulated, just overinterpreting things into this suggestion and mixing those thoughts with just unreasonable fears and unreasonable predictions about what you think, what would happen when such a system gets implemented, that you absolutely can’t have any proofs about, that those things that you predicted here, would happen at all

You even say it by your self, that your imagination power is lacking in regard to this topic…

I can’t see how they could possibly achieve that

But I can see it clearly and its much easier than you think it is/will be. It just takes only time and shouldn’t be something, that Anet should rush too quickly.
Implementing something of such a big scale, like Sub Classes is something either for very timed and prepared Patches, or something for Expansions, where Anet can take themself all the time they need to come up with a proper, well thought out and tested out/balanced system to implement step by step the new Sub Classes.
Systems like Sub Classes are nothing, that you can just implement right so, as if it would be nothing. We are speakign here of basically 8/9*3 Sub Classes based on my Suggestion, that are 24-27 larger improvements to the current 8 Basic Class Mechanics.
Thats’t not exactly chicken feed! This is something, that needs to be very well planned.

But it would be something, that would be very worth it to do so, it wouldlead to the point, that character progression would reach in this game its next step, something that really lets you feel, that you and your character have reached a new advanced grade of character progression and that your character has positively changed and developed itself further, like we all develop us self further over time in our jobs.
See Sub Classes like as a kind of CAREER for our characters.

If you just add everything to a Class only alwas per new Skills, new Traits ect. it just feels not like your characxter has developed itself further, it just doesn’t feel, like that your character has reached its next step in his/her career of life, but Sub Classes exactly can successfulyl give you as a player this kind of feeling that you reached the next step in your life’s career, because it leads to the point, that your character visually changes, becomes more powerful through receivign new abilities, that the character couldn’t use before and with that I mean not just only new Skills/Traits..
With that I mean new complete Class specific Mechanics, with that I mean complete new Weapon Types that could get unlocked that way for the specific Sub Classes.

Sub Classes are superior, when it comes to the point of Character Individualisation, Customization and making them just more unique and epic/heroically looking, than before. Just adding new skills/traits won’t do this, trying to do this by only adding new skills/traits always is the real thing, that isn’t feasible here.

Trying to do all this with adding only new skilsl/traits just leads to the point, that you still have at the end tons of non unique characters, that wear all the same equipment, which wear all the same weapons, which can use all the same skills, which use all the same mechanics…

briefly said.. its boring, its not innovative!
Sub Classes ARE innovative, because they open up the massive potential that this game has for more character individualization/customization together with this game’s dye system and allow it Anet to slowly introduce new mechanics and systems to improve the classes and make them more fun to play at the same time.

Shongaqu.5279:

…Continued form above…

TLDR : I would like to see a horizontal progression system in the game that focuses on investing us in the world of Tyria; a system that allows us to build something beyond our character’s stats and appearance. I would like to see a system that rewards gameplay with expanded options to generate world content for yourself and other players.

It’s like I told you before, Shongaqu. The concept is solid, the design is solid, the impact is genius…

…but it’s completely re-writing systems already fully functional and working well, while at the same time trying to create new systems with entirely new behaviors not utilized in the game.

It’d be a massive undertaking, likely completely impossible given time restraints, tech, budget, etc…

It’d be much easier, more efficient, and engaging if it were its own game built from the ground up (which you should totally do BTW )

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Some other interesting ways we could mitigate the pressure on alts is just make all ascended gear account bound it would remove some demand but it’s something we’ve discussed before. Another idea is we could make it easier to craft ascended gear after you’ve made the first set, or we could allow you to duplicate ascended gear with some recipe so once you’ve created one set you can copy it for an alt for less. You could allow people to give up other time gates for the crafting one by letting people craft stuff with laurels or mystic coins. These are all some of the ideas or concepts we toss around for how to solve some of the alt issues. As for crafting your first set of ascended gear we want this to take a bit of time before you get to our horizontal progression systems. These are all some random brainstorm ideas that need a lot more vetting but I wanted to give some examples of other ways to work around some of these issues.

Account bound ascended items don’t help for alts because your items are skinned and have fixed stat spreads, and that limits you to the same stat spread and appearance on your alt.

Trading one time gate for another doesn’t help either. Alts need the ascended things currently purchased with time-gated materials as well as the skins purchased/crafted with time-gated materials.

The ability to copy ascended stats to an alt would be good, but the price would need to actually be reasonable, otherwise the cost itself, even if it isn’t in time-gated material still would be a time gate. I have 10 level 80s and 18 other alts, so I’d really like a solution that makes alts more than the paper dolls they are now.

Here’s a proposal for handling some of the time-gating for Ascended mat refinement, etc…

Change the once-daily recipes to X-times-weekly (10 would be my suggestion). This means that you aren’t punished for “missing” a day.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

ptitminou.6489:

TLDR/Conclusion:
So, I will be able to run level 39 fractals in a month’s time, 2 months if I were a fresh new account, my friend will barely be able to afford 1 ascended ring, or one ascension item and he will still be running level 1-9 in 2 months because you want to “help” casual players. Timegates do NOT work, they will never slow down a hardcore player, all they achieve is to make us math things out to get max efficiency. Fractals really make a lot of the other timegates useless too, just an fyi for your game.

L2P an MMO tips:
Chase the furthest attainable carrot for your gamestyle (ie: not wvw achieves if you are an achiever), chances are you’ll grab a few of the others along the way without even trying. As well as making a ton of gold, because games are generally misbalanced like that to incite players to even bother going after that far away carrot.

The goal isn’t to make hardcore and causal players have equal times that would make for a pretty unfun game, goal is to just bring the ratios between them slightly closer instead of 100 to 1 get it to 20 to 1 and stop it from becoming 1000 to 1 over 10 years.

Some of the debate your leading into is time gating vs skill gating which is pretty tricky skill gating is important for a game but it drives a lot of people away. I actually think we need to add more skill gating but skill gating progression I think leaves some really strong imbalances and leads to really nitch hard core user base. This is why skill gating into horizontal progression rewards is good because this can allow people to do hard things but doesn’t require people to do it. This is why ascended armor is designed to be achievable by anyone just takes time to so.

I understand what you are going for. However, at the moment, it is going the opposite way. I don’t mind helping a friend catch up in fractals even though I get nothing much from it, but at least give him something for it is what I am saying. Currently, you’re stopping me from getting an item in 3 days and timegating it so it takes me 9 days for example, but you are also stopping the casual player from getting it in 3 days. What is happening is that it is really a 1:1 ratio. He won’t be able to get it any faster. I think it should be a 1:3 ratio. Introduce a weekly and monthly fractal-specific reward. As it stand, he still will average 68 relics per run eventually and he will still have to spend the exact same amount of time getting to where I am. He just has to manage that time differently. The difference is that he will not catch up to someone that has more days to dedicate before a very very long time.

(there is no skill involved in pressing buttons on a keyboard, but we’ll call it that for the sake of it, I get what you mean)
As for “skill gating”, that’s what fractals do after a while in combination with a timegate. No one views it as if they got 1 done just like those above. They view it as if it takes too long to do that and then they have to get another group on another day instead of going again with those who he just had a tolerable experience with. Inevitibly, some success rates will be higher than others and timegates, as well as discouraging higher players to help introduce the lower ones, will make those in the lower levels think that it’s really hard and that the success to time ratio to make it worth it is too low so they stop that altogether and do something else.

Also fractal ideas:
- Level 0 fractal run. No reward. No armor damage. Insta-rez at checkpoint (fall or intentional death to respawn the hammer for example). 1hp mobs. Choose the fractal.
- Introducing a “mentor” system for 1-19 where the mentor gets rewarded according to personal level upon success, where only personal level at or under the fractal level can join.
- Make mentor tag cost 2000 relics (or more!), kind of like a fractal commander tag.
- Make LFG specify a minimum AR level before joining the party.

An other little topic I want to mention here, because people keep on talking about skins ahere and methods to incentivize people to do older content..

One thing, that very much gripes me since the release of this game, are the rewards for successfully doing the first time with your character the Story Mode of the Dungeosn.

The current Rewards for doing the Dungeon Story Modes are laughable – just to say a pure joke. Absolutely worthless items that are in no way worth of the effort doing the Story Modes of the Dungeon.

Why is it so hard to ito come up with some real rewarding things, that trully feel also like good rewards for doing something in this game???

Can’t you just please exchange those 0815 generic head gear skin rewards for doing the Story Mode with your character with new real UNIQUE Head Gear Skins, that are based on the Dungeons you are doing

I’ve now over 1 year all of the head gear rewards from the story modes of my main character in the account chest, because I’m hoping, that Anet will one day hopefully retroactively/ or in re reset kind of fashion change the 0815 skins from those items to somethign really unique, that makes it worth it to do the Story Mode of the Dugneons for the Skins of the unique head gears.

Instead of that, we receive boring 0815 skins like Pirate Hats, that drop like sand at the beach and items, that are totally useless, because at times where you do the dungeons, you can basically receive already much better equipment with better stats, than the rewards of the story dungeon …

So by just turnign those rewards into unique skins would solve very easily this problem, because skins arend bonded to specific item level requirements and underpowered stats that are for the moment totally useless for the player.
An item Skin can’t be useless, because they are just only all about LOOKS, not stats
There the question that is standing in the room is only to the player.

Do I like the looks of that Skin, or not? But you just won’t be disappointed by the reward, because its just a piece of worthless junk for you, that you’d normally instantly destroy to receive some materials and some luck essence(s)

I know this is something, that doesn’t belong really directly to character progression, but I is important to me and I wanted to mention it just, because i think, now is just the right moment for it.
We are speaking about currently creating 9 dungeons, if we considerate the Fractals also as a normal dungeon that rewards a head gear at story mode completion.
Implementing into this game 9 new unique head gears into this game that are based on the dungeons, shouldn’t be wished too much ,nor should it be too muhc of a work, to implement somethign like this.

There would make exchangign the 0815 rare equipment rewards for exchanging dungeon tokens to unique armor sets more work, because that would basicalyl the next step I’d like Anet to improve skinwise,, that they add new armor skins to the rare reward sets, so that every dungeon should provide 2 unique looking different armor sets and not just only 1 unique armor set and some 0815 junk that drops like said sand on the beach everywhere else in this game with 0815 pirate skins ect.

Progression thread, so here are my thoughts/feeling; ignored as they will be.

1. Ascended Existence- One of the biggest bait and switch tactics done by a gaming company. From the manifesto to Colin Johanson: "Everyone, including casual gamers,
by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game.” http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-27-guild-wars-2-preview?page=3
It shouldn’t even exist, but here it is with all the current devs towing the company line of “We really meant for it to be in at the beginning, scouts honor. It wasn’t a complete kneejerk reaction to lure/keep traditional mmo content locusts.”

2. Ascended Acquisition – Not even remotely easily obtainable by the average (casual) player. The costs alone to craft it are quite extreme outside of sacrificing your firstborn child to the RNG gods. Perhaps not the individual costs of the ascended item itself http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_weapon, but to get to 500 level craft is going to cost you between 120-150 gold per profession, according to current material prices http://www.gw2crafts.net/. Not exactly pocket money for most players. Balance patch changes your class, craft another set of Ascended items. Want to change your build, craft another set. Want to play more than one character, weep. Add the weapons with corresponding stats to the Dungeon Vendors, laurel merchants, karma salesmen.

3. Ascended between Exotic/Legendary – This must be a joke statement by Anet. To get the item, you need crafting at 500. To get crafting to 500, you must burn through the same materials needed for the Legendary. It isn’t some sort of checkpoint on the path to legendary, but a hindrance and delay.

4. Lack of Horizontal Progression – Outside of the vertical, the way horizontal (looks) are handled is at best misguided, at worst a blatant cashgrab. Without some sort of PvE locker/skin unlock, the only way to maintain a library of skins is to buy their new Transmutation splitter and save the skin every time you want to change your look. They could unlock the skin either on an account/per character basis, and require the use of a transmutation stone/crystal to switch the look between available unlocks, similar to dyes.

Shongaqu.5279:

TLDR : I would like to see a horizontal progression system in the game that focuses on investing us in the world of Tyria; a system that allows us to build something beyond our character’s stats and appearance. I would like to see a system that rewards gameplay with expanded options to generate world content for yourself and other players.

That sounds awesome, but programmatically, how can it be done? At the base, it sounds like gathering influence for a guild and once the bar is full allow players to access x content. If it is generated dynamically, it sounds like what SOE is trying to do with EQN and the first impressions of how it works, well, let’s say they are a long ways from that goal.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Some other interesting ways we could midigate the pressure on alts is just make all ascended gear account bound it would remove some demand but it’s something we’ve discussed before. Another idea is we could make it easier to craft ascended gear after you’ve made the first set, or we could allow you to duplicate ascended gear with some recipe so once you’ve created one set you can copy it for an alt for less. You could allow people to give up other time gates for the crafting one by letting people craft stuff with laurals or mystic coins. These are all some of the ideas or concepts we toss around for how to solve some of the alt issues. As for crafting your first set of ascended gear we want this to take a bit of time before you get to our horizontal progression systems. These are all some random brainstorm ideas that need a lot more vetting but I wanted to give some examples of other ways to work around some of these issues.

Or you could just break the the stats from the skin. You could also give us a locker to store the skins and make them all account bound on equip. Then we can pick and choose which skin we wanted with what stat at any given time. It’s got to be simpler for you guys in the long run, you need to do is add a stat set or a skin, not both. Plus it would be far less confusing for players, the crafting UI at 400-500 is really messy.

It’s prolly a ton of work on the front end, but i think in the long run it would pay off.

Aza.2105:

I personally believe that the game needs a healthy dose of vertical and horizontal progression. It should not be so polarized towards either of the two.

Exactly. We need more of both.

Also I keep hearing people talking about their dozens of alts. Noone forces you to have that many characters in BiS gear. Any content in this game can be cleared in white gear if you are good. Anything more just makes the content easier.

EgonVenkman.1907:

3. Ascended between Exotic/Legendary – This must be a joke statement by Anet. To get the item, you need crafting at 500. To get crafting to 500, you must burn through the same materials needed for the Legendary. It isn’t some sort of checkpoint on the path to legendary, but a hindrance and delay.

This point seemed kind of worth bringing up/highlighting. While I’m not quite as cynical about the whole thing as EgonVenkman I do find it pretty irksome that you end up using up items useful in the crafting of a legendary to make the newest stopgap endgame gear. More generally the whole process of legenary creation is distinctly unlegendary and all around meh. Grind X McGillion items, get a precursor, voila you’re now really special.

Ok, I’ve read variations on this a bunch of times now but I’ve got to ask it straight out:

Do people feel it’s impossible to test new builds using only Exotic gear?

When I get an evil notion to couple Superior Runes of the Sunless with the fastest Elite Skill cooldown in the game (Basilisk Venom, muhuwahahaaa…) I don’t need a full suit of Ascended to figure out if it works. I may want that full set eventually if the build comes together, but it seems like the experimentation and even refinement phases aren’t going on hinge on that last 5% of stats. If anything timing issues (mostly cooldowns) which are barely affected by gear load-out have a lot more make-or-break impact on my experiments.

Nike.2631:

Ok, I’ve read variations on this a bunch of times now but I’ve got to ask it straight out:

Do people feel it’s impossible to test new builds using only Exotic gear?

When I get an evil notion to couple Superior Runes of the Sunless with the fastest Elite Skill cooldown in the game (Basilisk Venom, muhuwahahaaa…) I don’t need a full suit of Ascended to figure out if it works. I may want that full set eventually if the build comes together, but it seems like the experimentation and even refinement phases aren’t going on hinge on that last 5% of stats. If anything timing issues (mostly cooldowns) which are barely affected by gear load-out have a lot more make-or-break impact on my experiments.

Since I probably won’t be going for ascended gear, I will assume that build testing and build viability, etc will remain relatively unchanged.

If, some how, optimal builds change via min maxing with ascended gear, then this is a problem. This should not be a side effect.

Malediktus.9250:

Aza.2105:

I personally believe that the game needs a healthy dose of vertical and horizontal progression. It should not be so polarized towards either of the two.

Exactly. We need more of both.

Also I keep hearing people talking about their dozens of alts. Noone forces you to have that many characters in BiS gear. Any content in this game can be cleared in white gear if you are good. Anything more just makes the content easier.

Wholeheartedly disagree. Vertical progression along the lines of other MMOs can stay in those other MMOs. If you want Vertical Progression along the lines of the Fractal back pieces, or other Cosmetic only effects, go for it.

As for running content in whites, please by all means adopt this as your mantra. Do all content naked. Saying it is optional is silly and ridiculous. Using the everything is optional argument, nothing matters. NOTHING. Go to work, optional. Play the game, optional. Continue breathing, optional.

Vertical Progression

• Let ascended armor be the last tier. Infusions were a great idea. The statistical increase was a HORRIBLE, COMMUNITY DIVIDING idea. While I personally don’t mind the increase in stats because it doesn’t really effect PvE, this felt like a stab in the back. Don’t do it again

• Offer more infusion options along the lines of +1 Agony Infusions. +1 Gold Find, +1 WXP, +MF, etc infusions could drop from PvE/WvW areas, offering vertical progression WITHOUT statistical increases.

• Make…fractals…more…rewarding. Serious. Arguablly the most difficult PvE content in the game gives 1.1g – 1.5g. Seriously. WHAT THE HELL. 10s per reward level in the daily chest would make sense.

• Precursor Crafting was supposed to get done this year, but got pushed back a bit. Understandable. Get it done…make it reasonable (Gift of Metal+Gift of Wood+Vision Crystal+Precursor specific quest for Dawn, for example)

Horizontal Progression

• Skin management needs to be redone. I think you guys are working on it… work faster

• If you guys need more skin ideas, HOLD CONTESTS. Stagger armor design and weapon design contests every other month…and watch the FREE LABOR that the community gives to you. You’d be surprised what people will do for gems, a unique title, and a mini.

• On the subject of minis, these should actually be a status symbol. So far the only one a bother to show is my mini Liadri. Offer minis for challenging content, make minis EASIER TO DISPLAY (one-click on UI), and watch what happens.

• Titles, titles, titles. There are actually a good amount of titles in GW2…but there could always be more. A lot of achievement lines really do deserve their own title (Fractal Frequenter, PvP Ranks [i.e. Wolf of the Mists, Bear of the mists], and others). Some titles could be just for fun (i.e. Indiscriminate killer).

• Skills, skills, skills. Ty for the healing skills, btw. However, I’d like to see more done (Elites next, then a new line of utilities for each class would be my dream).

Nike.2631:

This is not true.

The point of time gating isn’t “You can ever catch up faster than once per day while you are in game at all”

It’s “You can never fall behind faster than 1 per day while you’re gone.”

Except that gating, in some cases, can be circumvented using something that is earned grinding or spending real money.
I doubt that this limit facilitate those who have little gold/few hours per day to play (usually causal players that don’t play flipping wars 2).

For example:
Ascended crafting materials (I suppose) right now are crafted by players who already have a lot of money to other players who have a lot of money to spend, that’s because leveling crafting disciplines is so expensive that (many, imo the majority of) casual gamers do not even try it.

If you could craft gated materials with just lv. 400, then that would be a nice way to help casual to take advantage from richer players that want to bypass the limit, but that’s not what it is happening.

I think this game is gradually becoming less and less friendly to the casual crowd, the only recent exceptions (finally) are:
- accountbound levels on fractals (but counterbalanced with an awful vertical progression revamp).
- more achievement to chose from for the daily, now it’s a bit easier to complete it, you almost have no need to focus on it.
A good step could also be considered the share of World XP between characters.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Some of the debate your leading into is time gating vs skill gating which is pretty tricky skill gating is important for a game but it drives a lot of people away. I actually think we need to add more skill gating but skill gating progression I think leaves some really strong imbalances and leads to really nitch hard core user base. This is why skill gating into horizontal progression rewards is good because this can allow people to do hard things but doesn’t require people to do it. This is why ascended armor is designed to be achievable by anyone just takes time to so.

About skill gating, you had it perfectly with fractals before. You needed skill to progress through the levels, especially at the higher levels. For the people who had a bit more trouble, the AR stat was helping them progress anyway.

So you had the skilled players, progressing fast through the levels, because they didn’t really need the AR, by dodging the dangerous attacks, but other players could still progress. You could view AR as a stat complementing the player skill, to compensate for the mistakes the player was making. So if a player did few mistakes, he didn’t need to much AR (just enough to not die if he was shot once), while someone else would have needed more (because if you make mistake after mistake, you can’t let your life go down too much or you won’t be able to bring it back up). But everyone was still able to discover and play all the maps, so if some couldn’t go high in fractal level, it wasn’t really that bad for them.
The skill of the player was the major component of the ability to progress, with the stuff (AR) being there as a safety net to help in case of errors.

With the new instabilities, especially the level 40 and 50, it is completely different now. AR is not helping players compensate for their mistakes anymore, it is completely mandatory. If you don’t have enough AR, you die, whatever the skill you have.
Therefore, the key component for progression is now the stuff, and not the skill anymore.

This was a bad change for the progression. Players don’t have to try to improve their gameplay anymore, they just need to farm and farm to get their AR to the required level. Character progression should be about trying to improve your abilities as a player, not just grinding for stuff.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Here is the next evolution of the original Vertical Progression proposal based on a summary of our discussions:

Regarding Ascended Gear we would like to see more ways to earn it and in terms of drop rates, a higher percentage chance of acquiring them through this method.

A review of current RNG metrics.

The ability to change gear stats (Note there is still a lot of discussion about whether people want this or not)

The ability to build up to Ascended Gear through drops rather than just relying on RNG.

Ascended Gear mats dropping more equally across the game, for example WvW.

No more new Gear tiers that make the existing tiers obsolete.

Additional ways to earn Ascended Gear at accelerated for Alts.

Note this is the formulation of a proposal for discussion. Once the proposal is finalized it will be discussed internally. However there will be no promise of actions or schedule.

Chris

Very cool, just want to add Chris, as a WvW player, I don’t really craft, and I think most of that would be a recurring theme. I have no numbers to enforce that, but I believe WvW players as a whole would be better with Ascended drops rather than just the mats dropping.

Even if the mats drop in WvW at an accelerated rate, most hardcore WvW players aren’t going to want to be forced into crafting, at least from my experience.

Every player is different, but keep in mind not everyone wants to collect crafting materials.

If you wanted to avoid a “bad RNG” situation, make an ascended armor/weapon guaranteed every 25 WvW ranks or something.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Here is the next evolution of the original Vertical Progression proposal based on a summary of our discussions:

Regarding Ascended Gear we would like to see more ways to earn it and in terms of drop rates, a higher percentage chance of acquiring them through this method.

A review of current RNG metrics.

The ability to change gear stats (Note there is still a lot of discussion about whether people want this or not)

The ability to build up to Ascended Gear through drops rather than just relying on RNG.

Ascended Gear mats dropping more equally across the game, for example WvW.

No more new Gear tiers that make the existing tiers obsolete.

Additional ways to earn Ascended Gear at accelerated for Alts.

Note this is the formulation of a proposal for discussion. Once the proposal is finalized it will be discussed internally. However there will be no promise of actions or schedule.

Chris

Great summary Chris, I think that wraps up most of the vertical aspects nicely.

With regards to my idea of using t-stones to replace inscriptions and insignias, if it’s not a great idea to modify t-stones to do this I was thinking that a similar type of object could be created… let’s call them V-stones… <cough>

Or… being an Asura (which everyone knows are also geniuses), it could be conceptualized that a certain Asura developed the brilliant method to overwrite these incriptions and insignia called… wait for it… the Volkonizer! Available to public use, of course, for a really insignificant fee.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Here is the next evolution of the original Vertical Progression proposal based on a summary of our discussions:

Regarding Ascended Gear we would like to see more ways to earn it and in terms of drop rates, a higher percentage chance of acquiring them through this method.

A review of current RNG metrics.

The ability to change gear stats (Note there is still a lot of discussion about whether people want this or not)

The ability to build up to Ascended Gear through drops rather than just relying on RNG.

Ascended Gear mats dropping more equally across the game, for example WvW.

No more new Gear tiers that make the existing tiers obsolete.

Additional ways to earn Ascended Gear at accelerated for Alts.

Note this is the formulation of a proposal for discussion. Once the proposal is finalized it will be discussed internally. However there will be no promise of actions or schedule.

Chris

So far this sounds quite promising! -especially- the part about changeable stats. It would allow for the game to be much more flexible and enjoyable, it would allow for people to stop having to worry about gear any longer as long as they reach this (quite steep for a large portion of the gaming population) plateau. It would allow GW2 to once again become the MMO which turns its back to boring grind for gear, where we have to swing our swords again and again on champ trains, just so that we can keep up, instead of actually exploring the world the game offers.

While some say that such a move would trivialize ascended gear as a whole, I say that it is extremely unlikely that any significant percentage of the population would go for more than one or two sets either way. What the addition of adjustable stats would allow us to do is be flexible and experiment once we put this extra effort into acquiring this set of gear.

So, I’ve read through most of the thread and I figure it’s about time I add my voice to the pool. Some of this will coincide with others’ thoughts, some may not. I think most of it is on the last summary, but I’d still like to add my 2 cents for the various things.

For ease of coherent thought and following, I am going to break this into 3 sections: Ascended gear, Vertical Progression (general), and Horizontal Progression. So bear with me….

Ascended Gear

I do not hate it; however, conversely I do no love it. It sets a precedent that Colin’s statements at PAX did little to ease my worries.

Once upon a time, it was stated that Anet did not want to become a game that negated its players’ time and effort. Ascended did precisely this. Once upon a time, it was stated that it was desirable for players to have best in slot gear by the time they attained max level, yet we cannot even begin working on BiS gear until we are max level. Once upon a time it was stated that BiS gear should be relatively easily obtainable, and yet ascended is nowhere close.

I understand that things change, and while some things are understandable and acceptable, some of them are hard to swallow. With the current state of ascended gear, many feel betrayed. Many have left. Many will not bother with it at all. These are not the feelings, actions, or reactions you were after, I am sure. So how can we fix it? How can we assuage some of the hurt?

First, many of us would like to see a definitive end point for ‘gear grind.’ Colin has said that Anet does not want to fall into the trap of pushing out a new level of gear every 6 months to a year, and I’d say most of us don’t want that either. It has also been said that there will be a slow power curve going forward, in the form of more powerful infusions. Ideally, we’d like there to be a definitive end to that arc at some point. GW1 has shown that you do not need a continued power creep, subtle or otherwise, to be an enjoyable game. The feel of progression can be achieved in other ways. Additionally, GW2 wanted to be ‘different’ than other MMOs ‘once upon a time.’ If you follow the same cadence of gear grind, no matter how subtle that grind, then how are you truly any different? There are plenty of games out there for people that want to grind gear.

Second, you asked if we would like to see more ways to obtain Ascended gear. HELL YES There are not enough ways for me to stress the affirmative to that. You tout the ‘play your way’ motto (within reason obviously), yet you strictly limit how one can play to obtain the final tier of gear. You make it so a player absolutely must craft. Why? Let dungeon runners use their tokens. Let WvWer’s use their badges. Let the crafters craft. Let Karma offer its holder the whole shebang is they can collect enough of it. Variety is the spice of life. Make it expensive, that’s fine. So it costs 10k dungeons tokens and 60 gold to outfit a character in ascended (the whole kit and caboodle…armor, single weapon set, trinkets, back piece), people would do it… because that is their choice. Let them have that ability to choose though.

Third, for those that choose to craft, let us collect bloodstone, dragonite, etc. prior to being max level. Lock the crafting from 400 to 500 behind the requirement of being level 80, but let us at least collect the materials. People with many characters are looking at loads of those materials and having to focus on collecting them after maxing one’s level does become a bit of a grind. Let us obtain them as we level our characters, as we play through the game that we enjoy, this way the creation of ascended at 80 becomes more of a ‘progress’ feel, and less of a tedious chore.

Forth, time gating is annoying, but some of us understand. Still, the limit of 1 per day is a bit much. If we have 3 maxed crafts that can make elder spiritwood residue (for example), then let us make 3. There are then several ways to handle it, but I’d say leave it at 1 per profession. It’s a hassle, but some people will bother with the swapping to make the others, some won’t. Still keeps the supply under control, and the price reasonably stable. Additionally, it might help ease some of the ‘I must log in’ pressure that some have expressed concern with. “Having to keep up” was another thing that was once expressed by the devs as an undesirable feeling in the playerbase, yet the extremes in some of the time gating creates precisely this feeling.

Finally, the costs of ascended are inhibiting to build diversity and experimentation. True, maybe not for some people, but for those with much less time, the costs of having to make multiple sets is a discouragement to the desire to upgrade. While I do not necessarily agree with offering the stat swapping that legendaries enjoy, I could go for the ability to change insignia on armor. Something similar to GW1 insignia would be nice, and you could offer a variety of acquisition methods, from crafting, to guild commendations, to karma, to discovery (remember discovering components via identification and salvaging in GW1?).

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

So I know time gates is a pretty hot topical overall as I’ve had some pretty heated debates in the past over it. So here is my view on them.

Summary
Overall I think time gates are important for an MMO, …

Con’s
- Time gates hurt players with more time …
- Repeatable time gates add “pressure” to complete the content before the gate resets, this can add fatigue to players play experience …
- Time gates are very calculable …

Pro’s
- Time gates help players with less time …
- Repeatable time gates add “pressure” to log in which helps create possible reward loops and play patterns …
- Time gates equalize players by bringing the hardcore and the causal players closer together. …
- Time gates help group players up …

Reasons for time gating
- Exploits (Many time gates are there to avoid exploits)
- Overflow issues …
- Reward Equalization …
- Character vs Account …

Overall I feel like time gating is important for an MMO because it’s important to close the gap between the causal and hardcore group so you can make sure your future rewards and content are useful for a wider variety of players. …

I support the reasons behind gating and I even support specific examples within the game. Unfortunately, I think the way it was implemented for ascended gear has hurt rather than helped the game. In particular, the time gating makes the game less fun to play.

Missing from the cons listed by Izzy above:

• Gear-related time gates are inherently tedious.

Missing from the cons as time gates are applied in GW2:

• All crafting-related time gates force players to logon specific characters and perform specific tasks.

I support the daily time gating of rewards from content. Those who play more and have more alts can therefore obtain more ascended rings and/or dragonite ore than others, but they can’t gain it so rapidly that more casual players fall too far behind.

• Bonus rewards are account-bound. -> Reduces pressure on players to attend every event and reduces likelihood of overflows.
• World event rewards are character-bound. -> Gives a minor advantage to altaholics.
• Pristine fractal relics and ascended drops are account-bound.

In contrast, I don’t support the gating for ascended armor and weapons:

• There’s only one guaranteed way to obtain these, forcing everyone to level up crafting. Previously, those who hated crafting could avoid it completely.
• It discourages build experimentation/swapping/diversity.
• Small mistakes are expensive and horribly frustrating.
• There are multiple gates: laurel costs for recipes, karma costs for materials & recipes, level multiple disciplines to 500, gather multiple types of materials, and the refining itself.
• The specific gates force people to play certain types of content: karma can be obtained from any part of the game, but there are very few sources of dragonite.
• Dark Matter has only once source and it’s horribly random — there’s absolutely no way to predict how much gold one needs to invest per item.
• Celestial recipes no longer drop, putting people at the mercy of speculators. Bad enough that this affects people who didn’t think ahead during the Zephrite visits, but anyone who has started the game since had no opportunity to learn these recipes.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Overall I feel like time gating is important for an MMO because it’s important to close the gap between the causal and hardcore group so you can make sure your future rewards and content are useful for a wider variety of players. …

I support the reasons behind gating and I even support specific examples within the game. Unfortunately, I think the way it was implemented for ascended gear has hurt rather than helped the game. In particular, the time gating makes the game less fun to play.

Missing from the cons listed by Izzy above:

• Gear-related time gates are inherently tedious.

Missing from the cons as time gates are applied in GW2:

• All crafting-related time gates force players to logon specific characters and perform specific tasks.

I support the daily time gating of rewards from content. Those who play more and have more alts can therefore obtain more ascended rings and/or dragonite ore than others, but they can’t gain it so rapidly that more casual players fall too far behind.

• Bonus rewards are account-bound. -> Reduces pressure on players to attend every event and reduces likelihood of overflows.
• World event rewards are character-bound. -> Gives a minor advantage to altaholics.
• Pristine fractal relics and ascended drops are account-bound.

In contrast, I don’t support the gating for ascended armor and weapons:

• There’s only one guaranteed way to obtain these, forcing everyone to level up crafting. Previously, those who hated crafting could avoid it completely.
• It discourages build experimentation/swapping/diversity.
• Small mistakes are expensive and horribly frustrating.
• There are multiple gates: laurel costs for recipes, karma costs for materials & recipes, level multiple disciplines to 500, gather multiple types of materials, and the refining itself.
• The specific gates force people to play certain types of content: karma can be obtained from any part of the game, but there are very few sources of dragonite.
• Dark Matter has only once source and it’s horribly random — there’s absolutely no way to predict how much gold one needs to invest per item.
• Celestial recipes no longer drop, putting people at the mercy of speculators. Bad enough that this affects people who didn’t think ahead during the Zephrite visits, but anyone who has started the game since had no opportunity to learn these recipes.

Well said, that was kind of my point, forcing the acquisition of Ascended gear through crafting leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I’m not a crafter, nor do I want to be forced to craft to have ascended gear.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

cesmode.4257:

We’ve talked about ascended runes/sigls as I think there are a number of balance issues with the current runes and sigils and it would allow us to make some tweaks to it that are harder to make without it but I don’t think we feel any need to do it yet and maybe not even at all. We have talked about how we are going to bring Jewel crafting and Cooking up to 500 but overall we really want to see how armor pans out and we would like to spend our time more on horizontal progression.

Hi, Thanks for the response! Get the email or the post-it note?

So this is semi comforting that you have not definitively decided on doing it yet, or if at all. I definately agree that JC and cooking need a boost and judging by this thread I think these are areas where you can lighten up on the requirements to craft in these disciplines. And it is good to hear that now that ascended armor is here, you are turning your focus to horizontal progression.

Question: How would it make your job easier to tweak balance issues if ascended sigils and runes were introduced, vs simply tweaking the existing ones? I don’t understand this.

Also, and one thing to keep in mind: If you ever decided to go ahead with introducing ascended sigils and runes, please allow them to be put into exotic gear. This would not force a player to grind up to 500 in a craft just to get these items.

While I could see how ascended gear feels like our focus as been on vertical progression I don’t feel like that is the case we spend a lot more time adding many things I would consider horizontal progression. I feel like new stat combos, skins, skills, traits, crafting recipes, mini pets, achievements, ect… are all horizontal progression and we have spent a lot more time and resources on expanding those systems by far.

Ascended Runes/Sigils: This is mainly an issue with acquisition of the exotic ones there is just a large number of worthless runes mainly due to the balance between supply and demand, while I think there are a number of balance tweaks needed to bring more in line I don’t think the total supply of all runes/sigils comes anywhere near the total demand for all runes and sigils which means over time runes and sigils value just gets less and less. It’s much harder to change that as it requires changing the value of a lot of current items. There are other systems we could do to fix this problem like we could make there be a less chance to salvage them out or make all runes/sigils crafting and when you salvage them you get some material that is used so we can adjust supply and demand between those.

Our system doesn’t really support limiting upgrades by rarity and I don’t think this is something we would do if we wanted to go that route we would just make infusions better sense they are naturally limited by ascended gear but that’s also a can of worms.

I think what most of us players are afraid of as far as progression goes, be it VP or HP is that no matter what way you take it, will it ever be removed from us like it was with fractals?
And I don’t think there’s anything that the Devs or anyone at Anet can say to make us feel that it wouldn’t happen again cause those of us that have been in game for this past year know that Anet can’t keep promises. Sorry, but this is just how it is. You reap what you sow.

EgonVenkman.1907:

Progression thread, so here are my thoughts/feeling; ignored as they will be.

1. Ascended Existence- One of the biggest bait and switch tactics done by a gaming company. From the manifesto to Colin Johanson: "Everyone, including casual gamers,
by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game.” http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-27-guild-wars-2-preview?page=3
It shouldn’t even exist, but here it is with all the current devs towing the company line of “We really meant for it to be in at the beginning, scouts honor. It wasn’t a complete kneejerk reaction to lure/keep traditional mmo content locusts.”

Personally, I still don’t understand why they needed an ascended gear tier that can’t be bought or traded for, unless ArenaNet has made the decision to exclude casual gamers in GW2.

My previous understanding was that if I don’t want to farm for the best gear in the game due to the fact that I have too much responsibilities in real life, I can buy what I needed through paying real money for gems. That seems fair to me. However, by making the acquisition for ascended gear only possible by grinding through content, it excludes people who may not have that much time to grind through the game and ArenaNet also missed out on that opportunity to earn my money through gems. Now it is a lose-lose situation.

And if I do decide to take a hiatus from the game, the chance of me returning is going to be even slimmer because by then almost everyone would be wearing full deck ascended gear, my characters would feel outdated and there would be no way I could catch-up considering the amount of grind that I must do then.

It is not so much whether my characters can still be effective with only full exotic gear on, but it is the feeling of my characters being still relevant, by wearing the most effective gear. The fact remains that I just don’t like to play in a game where my characters would always feel inferior to those other characters around me, as long as I don’t grind as much as they have.

Harbard.5738:

Simple ideas (hopefully fun) for CRAFTING PROGRESSION concerning ascended

Thinking of ascended as a goal here, since its the only real benefit from crafting atm.

Since crafting is utterly irrelevant (meaning it’s stupid to craft for yourself or to sell your products) from 1-400 and a meaningful and well-executed crafting revamp would take a lot more resources, why not make refining materials give cXP all the way up to 500? (ascended bricks and all that stuff could give cXP only from 400-500). What if gave more crafting XP as well?

Alternatively
A total alternative to speed up crafting would be making all those fangs, scales etc account bound and only sold to npc merchants and make them drop frequently. That could turn leveling crafting into a matter of actually playing the game and not buying tons of crap at the tp with tons of gold and processing it all in one day with craft boosters just to get that freaking ascended piece. But of course, farmers are gonna complain, but crafters will get an actual “do it yourself” experience and play the game, which is what most people like about making their own stuff, in the first place. Go, gather, craft. Not go, sit at tp for hours, craft.

I feel the same about crafting as I do about sitting at the TP. Its not playing the game. Not the way at all like I want to. I’m not making Ascended Armor. I’m not going out of my way to make Ascended Weapons. Its boring and tedious.
If I wanted to play a crafting simulator, I’m sure I could find a better solution than this game.
My biggest problem with Ascended is the method of acquisition. Sure, its a bit of progression to “work” on, but ‘work’ is the operative word.
I’d be fine with Ascended gear remaining as it is, if other methods to Acquire it were added in game. I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished much pressing a crafting button.
To clarify, I am not looking for an easier way. I would be happy with any alternative that does not require me to farm countless amounts of nodes and spend my game time standing at a crafting station.
Let me buy it with xx amount of Pristine fractal relics. At least the experience changes each time I go in there and I’m not standing still staring at a crafting window. Just as an example. Ascended doesn’t need to be made able to trade. People just need more ways to acquire it thats not mind numbingly boring + a method to change stats to make it multi-build friendly.

I think stat swapping on ascended items would be welcomed by pretty much everyone. The main point for debate is how best to implement it.

I’m not sure making an ascended insignia for each type of stat I wanted to swap to on each set of armor would be the way to go. Once you’ve got the insignia the bulk of the work is over. The same if it was RNG based, I’d hate having to rely on RNG to get the stats I want.

People need a horizontal reason why to go for ascended stuff, and quality of life stuff such as easy stat swapping would seem to be an easy, quick win for everyone with very few downsides

EgonVenkman.1907:

Progression thread, so here are my thoughts/feeling; ignored as they will be.

1. Ascended Existence- One of the biggest bait and switch tactics done by a gaming company. From the manifesto to Colin Johanson: "Everyone, including casual gamers,
by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game.” http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-27-guild-wars-2-preview?page=3
It shouldn’t even exist, but here it is with all the current devs towing the company line of “We really meant for it to be in at the beginning, scouts honor. It wasn’t a complete kneejerk reaction to lure/keep traditional mmo content locusts.”

It really gets tiresome hearing Colins quote from the Manifesto again and again. It’s just a bad argument coming up with this since the live game is different than any concept of the game before release. If something isn’t working (people obviously left the game) you need to fix it for the good of the game. If players don’t like the 100% horizontal way of the game, devs have to come up with new directions.

The power-increase from exotic to ascended is marginal (5% for the full set) and in no part of the current content mandatory.

Seriously, if they’d still design true to the Manifesto, this would mean that they haven’t learned anything in the last year.

Could always bring back the Eidolon in some fashion…

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Here is the next evolution of the original Vertical Progression proposal based on a summary of our discussions:

((cracks knuckles))

Alright. Now I understand the stakes of these posts.

Lets talk.

Regarding Ascended Gear we would like to see more ways to earn it and in terms of drop rates, a higher percentage chance of acquiring them through this method.

I’m slightly confused. “More ways to earn it” and “drop rates” feel like very separate things/bullet points to me. Probably just my brain stuttering when I read it.

More ways to earn: Yes. Yes, please. Yes, many, many times.

Better RNG drop rates: Eh. I find its kind of a cheap thrill. I’m not against it, but its not something I want soaking up a lot of developer energy or being used as a excuse validating failure to improve on other fronts. To me this points in the right direction but has the lowest potential of all points listed here.

A review of current RNG metrics.

If you just heard cheering in the distance that was probably me .

The ability to change gear stats (Note there is still a lot of discussion about whether people want this or not)

I want to clarify my opposition: I am against casual stat swapping. A number of schemes have been put forward that involve a very modest level of commitment to rotate a set. Those sound both interesting as in-game activities and less likely to invalidate parts of the system we have currently.

I still see these prompting a complex set of refunds for duplicate recipes/items to avoid punishing early adopters, but that’s not an insurmountable bit of coding.

It is my least favorite approach and I worry that it will compound poorly with other changes, but it is rich with potential. My vote would simply be “approach cautiously” not “no”.

The ability to build up to Ascended Gear through drops rather than just relying on RNG.

Some of the item advancement schemes are very appealing. This is a promising concept in my eyes.

Ascended Gear mats dropping more equally across the game, for example WvW.

If there is an argument against this that doesn’t make the speaker look like a complete jerk, I can’t easily imagine it .

No more new Gear tiers that make the existing tiers obsolete.

This. This times 10^26. Then add one more ‘This’ for good measure.

Additional ways to earn Ascended Gear at accelerated for Alts.

((wipes a little tear from the corner of the eye))

14 of my 16 characters just got all choked up .

Note this is the formulation of a proposal for discussion. Once the proposal is finalized it will be discussed internally. However there will be no promise of actions or schedule.

Mount a web camera in the conference room. Seriously. I want a recording of that made so that however-many months later when the results of this EPIC meeting become public knowledge you can show us a (sanitized) highlights reel of the battles fought that day.

EgonVenkman.1907:

3. Ascended between Exotic/Legendary – This must be a joke statement by Anet. To get the item, you need crafting at 500. To get crafting to 500, you must burn through the same materials needed for the Legendary. It isn’t some sort of checkpoint on the path to legendary, but a hindrance and delay.

I agree. It would be nice if precursor-crafting would use ascended weapons as part of the material list imho. So that you basically upgrade your ascended weapon to a legendary one.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

EgonVenkman.1907:

Progression thread, so here are my thoughts/feeling; ignored as they will be.

1. Ascended Existence- One of the biggest bait and switch tactics done by a gaming company. From the manifesto to Colin Johanson: "Everyone, including casual gamers,
by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game.” http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-27-guild-wars-2-preview?page=3
It shouldn’t even exist, but here it is with all the current devs towing the company line of “We really meant for it to be in at the beginning, scouts honor. It wasn’t a complete kneejerk reaction to lure/keep traditional mmo content locusts.”

It really gets tiresome hearing Colins quote from the Manifesto again and again. It’s just a bad argument coming up with this since the live game is different than any concept of the game before release. If something isn’t working (people obviously left the game) you need to fix it for the good of the game. If players don’t like the 100% horizontal way of the game, devs have to come up with new directions.

The power-increase from exotic to ascended is marginal (5% for the full set) and in no part of the current content mandatory.

Seriously, if they’d still design true to the Manifesto, this would mean that they haven’t learned anything in the last year.

Even so, the quotes from Colin are still very important because many people actually bought this game due to those promises. How do you think they should react when these promises are broken after they have bought the game?

It doesn’t matter that it is only a 5% increase in power between exotic and ascended gear. Many players, including myself, just do not enjoy seeing their characters in outdated, less effective gear compared to the players around us.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Some other interesting ways we could midigate the pressure on alts is just make all ascended gear account bound it would remove some demand but it’s something we’ve discussed before.

For the love of the Six! Make this happen!!!!

This would totally motivate me to get one of each set (zerker, soldier, cleric, etc.)!!!

FeveredDreamer.2693:

More generally the whole process of legenary creation is distinctly unlegendary and all around meh. Grind X McGillion items, get a precursor, voila you’re now really special.

I can’t agree more. Personally I’d turn Lodestones into untradeable mats and decrease the number of stones I need for a Legendary down to 3-10. Personally I’ve rarely seen Lodestones drop, and I hate that most of the people need to spend money on the trading post to purchase Lodestones.

Seriously, how much money do you WvWers (like me) out there make via playing WvW mostly? I can say that for me, even though we kill a lot of enemy players, it’s a VERY small number.

Aeonblade.8709:

Very cool, just want to add Chris, as a WvW player, I don’t really craft, and I think most of that would be a recurring theme. I have no numbers to enforce that, but I believe WvW players as a whole would be better with Ascended drops rather than just the mats dropping.

Even if the mats drop in WvW at an accelerated rate, most hardcore WvW players aren’t going to want to be forced into crafting, at least from my experience.

((Jaw hangs open))

You win. That is an argument against rebalancing mats availability in Wvw that is NOT based on being a jerk.

Every player is different, but keep in mind not everyone wants to collect crafting materials.

Excellent point. It is good to be reminded of this.

Let me hope that a Badges of Honor -> Ascended Gear chest vendor one day appears.

If you wanted to avoid a “bad RNG” situation, make an ascended armor/weapon guaranteed every 25 WvW ranks or something.

Or something like that.

ptitminou.6489:

Shongaqu.5279:

TLDR : I would like to see a horizontal progression system in the game that focuses on investing us in the world of Tyria; a system that allows us to build something beyond our character’s stats and appearance. I would like to see a system that rewards gameplay with expanded options to generate world content for yourself and other players.

That sounds awesome, but programmatically, how can it be done? At the base, it sounds like gathering influence for a guild and once the bar is full allow players to access x content. If it is generated dynamically, it sounds like what SOE is trying to do with EQN and the first impressions of how it works, well, let’s say they are a long ways from that goal.

The mission system that I talked about in my previous posts would spawn in a similar way to how scarlet invasions spawn. They could even use the same event location hooks since anet has already vetted theose for open areas and NPC spawn locations. The player would go to the location marked on the map and use and item to start up the event, or it would trigger when they arrive. The new content in what I described was entirely for the single player content (building/interface/etc).

VOLKON.1290:

Could always bring back the Eidolon in some fashion…

Let me embellish now that the grey matter has digested this a bit.

Every thirty hours, on all servers simultaneously (to prevent hopping) and in overflows a Meta event chain kicks off somewhere, possibly even in a new, small zone that is relatively dead otherwise. The chain takes your through a few events and, at the culmination, there before you stands… er… floats the Eidolon. In a battle of Tequatlesque fashion, the server comes together to take down the beastie. You loot from it (if you win) an “Eye of the Eidolon”, which you can use to turn in for a piece of ascended gear of the stats of your liking.

I chose thirty hours because that will rotate through the timezones for the server and not leave people out due to work or region, but that can be modified of course, say fifty-four hours for example if it seems too frequent.

Meta event, mega-beast, coordinated server efforts, alternative means to get a piece o’ gear.

++Overall I feel like time gating is important for an MMO because it’s important to close the gap between the causal and hardcore group so you can make sure your future rewards and content are useful for a wider variety of players. ++

See, this is what I don’t understand. When did we get into the land of everyone must always be at the same cosmetic level/gear as everyone else? Time & skill should be rewarded appropriately. I agree it should be important to close the gap between the two, but the balance of this gap is significantly off and leans heavily in favor of the casual population (which is obviously the larger population of Guild Wars 2). There is absolutely, 100%, no reflection of any skill in anything you can aquire in-game (even currently in PvP, short of maybe rank 60+). Everything (cosmetic wise) is a grind. And honestly, that’s fine to have a majority of cool rewards involving a huge time-sink/grind/etc; but again there is nothing to distinguish hardcore players from the casual. A system that accomplished both would be most welcome (such as not making high-level fractal rewards RNG, or better yet, rewarding specific gear types for hard-to-accomplish fractal achievements that we can show-off). I have a feeling the coming sPvP reward changes will address this hybrid system well, but it should be something that is kept in mind with PvE as well (and WvW).

RNG is a good limiting factor to some of your high-level achievements, but it is absolutely undesireable by a huge majority of your population. Why not just set recipes up to take huge chunks of materials/etc, keep the cool RNG component if you happen to get lucky, and have win/win. When you have a clear, traceable goal, all is well (such as ascended gear - I have 8 80’s, all that I want multiple ascended gear on, but even though it’s going to take 1 year+ to gear them out I don’t mind because at least it’s something I can say, "If I do X, I get Y").

Nonetheless, despite all this critique, the system is getting better and you guys are listening to us more and more. I just hope/wish you keep us (the hardcore players) in mind when you design these systems along with the casual. Throttling our progression heavily is just demoralizing.

As usual with these types of discussions, we appreciate them and keep it up!

Brainstorm, make it so every time you craft an ascended item the next time you craft that same item (can be with different stats next time) it costs 20% less mats, then the following time 40% less mats, then 60% and so forth. craft 5 of the same ascended items and you start making them for free to give out to alts or test new builds.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Some other interesting ways we could midigate the pressure on alts is just make all ascended gear account bound it would remove some demand but it’s something we’ve discussed before.

This would actually motivate me to actually make Ascended armor. As I could make all kinds of different sets. Instead of needing multiple zerker sets, multiple pvt sets, I would make one of each kind. The hassle of putting armor through the bank to other characters would be negligible compared to what I’d have to do currently to outfit them all.
I might make multiple sets eventually to save that hassle, but at least it wouldnt be nearly as daunting or restricting as it is now.

VOLKON.1290:

VOLKON.1290:

Could always bring back the Eidolon in some fashion…

Let me embellish now that the grey matter has digested this a bit.

Every thirty hours, on all servers simultaneously (to prevent hopping) and in overflows a Meta event chain kicks off somewhere, possibly even in a new, small zone that is relatively dead otherwise. The chain takes your through a few events and, at the culmination, there before you stands… er… floats the Eidolon. In a battle of Tequatlesque fashion, the server comes together to take down the beastie. You loot from it (if you win) an “Eye of the Eidolon”, which you can use to turn in for a piece of ascended gear of the stats of your liking.

I chose thirty hours because that will rotate through the timezones for the server and not leave people out due to work or region, but that can be modified of course, say fifty-four hours for example if it seems too frequent.

Meta event, mega-beast, coordinated server efforts, alternative means to get a piece o’ gear.

It’s a nice idea. However the overflows would kill any semblance of community and coordination. If you thought the mess that organising Teq was, this would be worse..

Great idea, but hampered by the limited way in which the game works :/

VOLKON.1290:

VOLKON.1290:

Could always bring back the Eidolon in some fashion…

Let me embellish now that the grey matter has digested this a bit.

Every thirty hours, on all servers simultaneously (to prevent hopping) and in overflows a Meta event chain kicks off somewhere, possibly even in a new, small zone that is relatively dead otherwise. The chain takes your through a few events and, at the culmination, there before you stands… er… floats the Eidolon. In a battle of Tequatlesque fashion, the server comes together to take down the beastie. You loot from it (if you win) an “Eye of the Eidolon”, which you can use to turn in for a piece of ascended gear of the stats of your liking.

I chose thirty hours because that will rotate through the timezones for the server and not leave people out due to work or region, but that can be modified of course, say fifty-four hours for example if it seems too frequent.

Meta event, mega-beast, coordinated server efforts, alternative means to get a piece o’ gear.

That’s a cool idea Volk, hope they carry this one to the table with them.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

As for crafting your first set of ascended gear we want this to take a bit of time before you get to our horizontal progression systems.

Stop.

Right there. See that?

That’s making people gear up before they get to the fun stuff. That’s exactly what that is.

Throw that out, it’s terrible. Rethink.